Un-unionized
The share of US workers who are members of a union has fallen again, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — hitting a new low of just 1 in 10 employees being unionized in 2023, slightly down from 10.1% the year before.
While union membership has been in decline for decades, last year saw a historic number of long-running strikes, with everyone from Hollywood actors, to auto workers, to Starbucks baristas joining their union’s respective picket line, as public approval of labor unions hovered near 50-year highs.
Although many of these strikes resulted in wins for unions — with total union membership actually increasing by ~100k from the year before — this was not enough to outpace the wider growing US workforce, as private sector union membership continued to shrink. Indeed, the membership rate of public-sector workers (32.5%) was reported to be more than 5x the rate of private-sector workers (6.0%) last year.
